When you are in an experience, do you see yourself as “part of” or “separate from”? If you see yourself as part of, everything in the experience is available to you. You have a right to be involved- just because you are there.
So no more “being on the outside looking in”. The experience in front of you needs you to get involved. I was in the grocery store a while back and this woman was yelling at her son, “How could you be so stupid?”- as I was walking by. I was feeling bold that day and simply said, “Don’t say that to him.” She said, “That is none of your business. I responded, “You made it my business when you said it in the middle of the bread isle.”
I was part of that experience. Why not get involved and play my part? We all survived it. The kid seemed to appreciate it and I walked away feeling good about it. How many times had I just walked on by because I told myself it was none of my business. Then later I felt like I somehow condoned it. It is time to reclaim our sense of community. That Albertson’s store is my village. Why wouldn’t I say something?
Whether or not you participate in an experience is a by-product of how you see yourself in relation to the experience. I recommend getting in the habit of seeing yourself as a part of every situation that you are in. What do you have to offer it? What is your part of that dance?
Then all of people, possibilities, and resources associated with the experience are available to you. It is only you seeing yourself as being separate that excludes you. Being separate is a story you tell yourself; it is an illusion. You can just as easy choose to see yourself as part of and participate.
So give yourself permission to be a part of. Life is happening right in front of you. Let yourself have some.
You are innocent and beautiful inside. If you go deep enough, there is nothing but light and love in there.
Our innocence and beauty just gets walled off with mistaken beliefs about ourselves. We are told there is something wrong with us- that we are deficient. We are told that we are born of sin. These self-beliefs create onion layers around the light and love.
After a while, we cannot access the light and love anymore. All we can feel are the onion layers or mistaken beliefs. They feel icky. We believe that the ickiness we feel is who we are inside.
These beliefs are 180 degrees from the truth. Those mistaken beliefs are not who you are. Someone sold you a bill of goods. You believed them.
Next time you feel poorly about yourself, go deeper. Meditate, pray, fall in love, follow your passion, explore. Just do whatever it takes to get beyond the onion layers to the light and love.
Your beauty is still in there waiting for you to discover it. Beneath the layers of self-beliefs, you are still as innocent as the day that you were born.
But don’t believe me. You will have to experience it for yourself.
Whenever I want to be really present, I say, “I am nothing, I know nothing.” It is a declaration taught to me by my teacher to be clear when doing Native American ceremony. I use it in all aspects of my life. Saying this (and meaning it) allows me to detach from all the things that I thought I was and thought I knew. Then I can discover who I am in my present experience.
It allows me to “empty my cup,” so there is room for something new.
It allows me to be “teachable.” I can learn something.
Then I do not have to reinforce the things I thought I was or thought I knew with my new experience. I can be free to see and experience things way they are.
It is the most powerful teaching and tool that I was ever given.
Try it sometime. You will be amazed at what you discover.
When looking to have experiences that have emotional content involved, the timing and energy of the people involved is essential.
When taking care of business, you are primarily working with your rational, analytical mind to make decisions and address situations. It works to have meeting about such and such topic at 10:00 am on Tuesday, for instance. The rational mind or intellect is relatively detached from our emotions and can deal with the task at hand on demand.
But for emotional experiences, it is much more effective to address them when the timing and energy is right. It is important to discern the emotional energy of the person and yourself to see if it is conducive to such a discussion or experience.
So when you are wanting to address something with someone you care about, send out the intention, and then look for opportunities to present themselves to address or experience it. Trust your instincts to know when the energy is right. It is a matter of letting things unfold rather than forcing them.
Another skill to do this is to allow the subject matter that you wish to discuss to arise naturally. My Zen teacher would wait months for me to bring a topic up before he would discuss and give me counsel on it. That way he knew that I was ready and open to it. He found it more authentic to address things that were in the “present.”
By finding the right opportunity, you will find the person you wish to connect with more open and available to what you want to share with them.
In our busy lives, one experience tends to blend into another. Often we do not complete the previous experience before starting the next one. This keeps us from being present. The unfinished experiences start to build up. They keep us feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
One way to complete experiences (and not drag one into another) is called “Closure.” Bart Anderson articulates the 6 steps of Closure as following:
1. Acceptance of the reality of the situation.
2. Reconciliation: Learning something.
3. Asking: What can I do about it?
4. Determination to have things differently.
5. Look at your possibilities.
6. Put your focus in front of you!
Closure can be done immediately following the experience, at the end of the work day, or before bed to complete the day. At the end of the day, it is useful to identify and do closure with all of the experiences that affected you significantly that day.
Within second step of closure lies the key to resolving any past experience- true reconciliation. You cannot undo an experience or “make it right”. You can, however, learn from it- so that experience adds value to your life. This is called “blessing the lesson” (see previous blog).
Once completing these steps, you are free to be present for your next experience. You can sleep and dream peacefully. You can start a new day without dragging the unfinished business of the previous day into it.
And… don’t forget to do closure at the end of your Friday- so you can have a good weekend.
When you are in an experience, do you see yourself as “part of” or “separate from”? If you see yourself as part of, everything in the experience is available to you. You have a right to be involved- just because you are there.
You are innocent and beautiful inside. If you go deep enough, there is nothing but light and love in there.
Whenever I want to be really present, I say, “I am nothing, I know nothing.” It is a declaration taught to me by my teacher to be clear when doing Native American ceremony. I use it in all aspects of my life. Saying this (and meaning it) allows me to detach from all the things that I thought I was and thought I knew. Then I can discover who I am in my present experience.
When looking to have experiences that have emotional content involved, the timing and energy of the people involved is essential.
In our busy lives, one experience tends to blend into another. Often we do not complete the previous experience before starting the next one. This keeps us from being present. The unfinished experiences start to build up. They keep us feeling anxious and overwhelmed.
